induced many others
to imitate what they deemed my example."

"And you really did make this investment?" said Hankes, whose eagerness
could not brook longer delay.

"Yes," said she, with a quiet smile, "though, evidently, had I consulted
Mr. Hankes, he would never have counselled the step." After a moment,
she resumed, "I have half a mind to tell you how it happened."

"I pray you let me hear it."

"Well, it was in this way: Shortly after that affair of the Ossory
Bank,--the run for gold, I mean,--I received a few hurried lines from
Mr. Dunn, urging me to greater exertion on the score of the Glengariff
scheme, and calling upon me to answer certain newspaper insinuations
against its solvency, and so forth. Before replying to these attacks,
I was, of course, bound to read them; and, shall I confess it, such was
the singular force of the arguments they employed, so reasonable did
their inferences appear, and so terrible the consequences should the
plan prove a failure, that I for the first time perceived that it was
by no means impossible the vast superstructure we were raising might be
actually on the brink of a volcano. I did not like exactly to tell Mr.
Dunn these misgivings; in fact, though I attempted two or three letters
to that effect, I could not, without great risk of offending, convey my
meaning, and so I reflected and pondered over the matter several days,
working my brain to find some extrication from the difficulty. At last,
I bethought me of this: Mr. Dunn was my guardian; by his efforts was the
small fragment of property that fell to me rescued and saved. What if I
were to request him to invest the whole of it in this scheme? Were its
solvency but certain, where could the employment of the money be safer
or more profitable? If he consented, I might fairly suppose my fears
were vain, and my misgivings unfounded. If, however, he showed any
reluctance, even backwardness, to the project, the very phrase he might
employ to dissuade me would have its especial significance, and I could
at once have something to reason upon. Well, I wrote to him, and he
answered by the next post: 'I fully coincide with your suggestion, and,
acting on it, you are now the possessor of fifty-four shares in the
allotment. As the moment for buying in is favorable, it is a thousand
pities you could not make an equally profitable investment for your
brother, whose twelve hundred pounds is yielding the very inglorious
interest of the ba